Disable Rich Text / Markup for all Notes

Recommended Posts

Im coming from Simplenote and love the fact that all of my notes are in Plain Text by default. I'm a Web Developer by trade and can't stand Rich Text or Markup because both are awful for note taking. With Evernote, I'm able to attach images and documents to my notes which is awesome. I'm also able to organize my notes into folders (Notebooks) which isn't possible with Simplenote. Being that both of those options are so useful, I'm thinking about switching to Evernote.

So far, I don't think I have the option to disable Rich Text / Markup with Evernote which is absurd. I would also like to purchase Evernote so that I can password protect my notes, but I have already spent far too much time fighting the app trying to remove the auto formatting which is beginning to drive me crazy.

Taking notes in plain text is so much easier than using Rich Text / Markup in my opinion, and it seems like Evernote forces users to use Rich Text instead of giving us the choice to disable it. For example, I always use 1. 2. 3. etc. to organize my notes. With Evernote, it always indents these numbers by default and then I have to fight the app to work the way I want (I don't want these numbers indented).

Is there a way to disable formatting for all documents so that all of my notes are in plain text? I have the Evernote app downloaded on my Mac and have gone thru the preferences. I can't figure it out. If this isn't possible, it's a deal breaker, and switching to Evernote simply won't work for me.

Share this post

Link to post

Hi. Don't think there's a way to 'disable' layout, but the auto formatting isn't 'markup', it's just an auto-reaction to a very limited number of specific formats triggering the formatting.

Ctrl (Cmd) -Z will revert to the standard layout, or you could try right-clicking in the note and choosing 'remove formatting' to go back to basics. There's also the option to create and edit your text in third-party software and save the resulting file back into Evernote to make it available anywhere you can access your account, or copy and paste the text from the app into Evernote.

Plus Evernote is intending to make it possible (I believe) to switch off the auto-format in future updates.

Not a great situation I know, but it's what there is for now.

1

Share this post

Link to post

I agree with you 100% ClintM. I'm not sure if they allow users to remove the formatting which is frustrating to me too. I personally just spent the last 15min formatting one of my longer notes exactly the way that I wanted it. Out of nowhere -- BAM! -- Evernote magically reformatted everything back to the way it was before. Why it would do this is beyond me.

There is absolutely no reason that there isn't a setting under "Personal Settings" that allows users to select between these two:

Formatting: Rich Text / Plain Text

Hopefully someone else replies with a solution for this issue.

P.S. If you look at the bottom of this Reply window, there is a switch that says "Notify me of replies." You can toggle that switch on and off which is nice. Their Dev Team could easily add a switch just like that into Personal Settings within a single day and the hundreds of thousands of users that want plain text could simply toggle that pretty switch. Just my two cents.

I can't see a big user base for this request but I could be wroing
Would you like this moved to a product feedback to that it can receive attention as a request and be voted on.
Let me know which platform you use?

Share this post

Link to post

Over the years there have been so many issues with text editing on mobile - copy/paste, bullets, checkboxes, etc - that I've always wondered why Evernote didn't introduce a plain text note type for simple text notes. Not to replace the current rich text editor, but as an addition to it for quick notes. Evernote, despite the word "note" in its name, has never been a good note taking app along the lines of Simplenote or countless others.

Share this post

Link to post

@Bob in NV: I'm checking out Microsoft OneNote right now to see if they offer this option. If so, I will be switching. If not, I'll be using Simplenote instead.

@HerbyDE: I have a Mac but it's nice to know that it's available for Windows.

@JMichaelTX: Code Block is something completely different than what I'm looking for. I don't want the plain text to have a gray background around it, I want anything I paste or create in Evernote to have no formatting whatsoever by default. If I want Rich Text for a particular note, I, the user, should be able to choose that. Code Block is a useful feature on websites and forums, but I don't see it being useful in your notes app.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Hopefully @DTLow can move this to Product Feedback so that it can be voted on. I have a feeling that a quarter to a third of Evernote users would use this if it were an option.